It is well understood in the toy train truck art to provide a truck assembly having a conventional pair of longitudinally spaced wheel sets, each wheel set having an axle with a wheel mounted to each end of the axle. The wheel sets are supported by side frames which maintain the wheel sets in fixed relationship to one another. The side frames are joined together by a common bolster which normally provides a center mounting pad that attaches to the underside of a railway vehicle car body in a conventional matter.
Toy train truck assemblies are generally designed for a specific purpose, that is, for use in conjunction with a specific car body, for example, a passenger car, a caboose, a boxcar, a tender, or a diner car: In order to replicate the full-scale trains that are normally found in railway systems, it has been necessary to provide each car body with a specific truck assembly. As such, a multitude of model toy train truck assemblies have been created in order to satisfy the customer demand for a truck assembly that replicates each type of large scale truck design. In the past, this has required toy train manufacturers to use separate tooling for each type of truck assembly. This obviously is costly to the manufacturer who must ultimately pass along such costs to the customer.
Therefore, there is a need to provide a modular toy train truck assembly that allows a basic toy train truck design to be employed with the various car bodies that are manufactured which is adapted for use with either a fixed arm or an articulating arm. Also, there is a need to provide a modular toy train truck assembly that may be easily modified by the customer in order to add accessories to the train truck assembly.